Since 1970, California voters have gone to the polls 47 times to vote on 530 initiatives – an average of 11 initiatives at each election. And most initiatives pass (309 of 530 since 1970, or 58 percent).

California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George has had enough. Appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991, he’s finally speaking out on the need to change the initiative process.

In a Saturday speech aptly titled “The Perils of Direct Democracy,” Chief Justice George laid out what makes California unique: “Although two dozen states in our nation permit government by voter initiative, in no other state is the practice as extreme as in California.”

As he points out, the current initiative process places significant burdens on the judicial branch of government – since the courts are called upon frequently to resolve challenges and poor drafting language.

The problems, in his view:

California permits a relatively small number of petition signers to get something on the ballot – 8 percent of voters in the last gubernatorial election for proposed constitutional amendments and 5 percent for proposed laws.

Initiatives lard up California’s constitution with policy matters that have nothing to do with fundamental rights and responsibilities – including, as George points out, “a prohibition on the use of gill nets and a measure regulating the confinement of barnyard fowl in coops.”

Initiatives, often at cross-purposes, have hamstrung how elected officials may raise and spend revenue. As he points out, a steep two-thirds vote requirement for raising taxes was “imposed at the ballot box” – as was the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget. Other initiatives require minimum spending levels for education and other areas so that legislators actually control very little of state spending.

Voters in 1911 shut out the Legislature from the initiative process, making California the only state that bypasses legislative fact-gathering and deliberation.

Before 1911, citizens in California voted only on measures that were placed on the ballot by the Legislature. Voters also prohibited legislators from amending or repealing initiatives.

Chief Justice George asks, “has the voter initiative now become the tool of the very types of special interests it was intended to control, and an impediment to the effective functioning of a true democratic process?”